My Loathing, My Love
by Feilyn
Summary: Love and hate are two sides of the same blade, a blade with a very keen edge. But Death is brought not by the sides but by the dividing edge. Harry and Draco, with souls entwined, are locked in a neverending battle of passion. My loathing. My Love.
1. My Loathing, My Love

_I'm just in the mood to do this little oneshot. I hope you enjoy, if you do, drop me a review. Also, if you have any ideas on how I can improve it, tell me. It's close to my heart, for some reason. Apologies for being in a sombre mood._

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

They both screamed as they reached their release together, as they always did. There was a moment of calm, the only sound their heavy breathing. Until—

"Move, Potter."

Harry sighed, closing his eyes. He had hoped…but no. Draco was and ever would be an insensitive bastard.

He cast a cleaning spell and they dressed in silence, as they always did. It was their own personal ritual. Find each other, fuck, then pretend it never happened.

Except Harry was finding it harder and harder to pretend.

"Dr-Malfoy."  
The blonde's head jerked up in surprise at the sound of his name. "Potter."

Inwardly Harry rolled his eyes. Ever succinct, Draco. He swallowed hard and licked his lips, then allowed the words to just burst out, as water from a broken dam. "What is this?"

"This?" Draco echoed, face unreadable.

"Y-yeah," Harry stuttered nervously, his palms sweaty. "This."

Harry thought he saw a flash of some unidentifiable emotion behind Draco's shuttered eyes, but it passed as quickly as it came, the blonde slamming down that damn impenetrable mask before sneering again.

"It's fucking, Potter. There is no _this_."

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

Harry stood, back straight, looking at the softly twinkling blue eyes of Dumbledore, clasping hands in an Unbreakable Vow with him. Hermione's idea.

Said girl—woman now, with eyes already haunted with sorrow, stood at his side as witness. She had been inducted the day after her seventeenth birthday.

"Do you understand, Harry James Potter, that by taking this vow, you pledge yourself to the Order of the Phoenix?"

"I do."

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

That chilling cold voice echoed around the room.

"You will kneel."

Draco slowly sank to his knees and kissed the hem of Lord Voldemort's robes. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his father, face Malfoy-straight but his eyes burning with pride.

That was all he'd ever wanted. For his father to be proud of him.

"Rise."

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

"Do you swear to remain true to the Order of the Phoenix and the Side of Light, to protect the innocent and the Light no matter if you hold grievance with them or not?"

"I do." Even as he said the words, Harry recalled an argument he'd had with Severus the previous year.

_"It does not matter Potter, the personal…issues we have. We fight for the same side."_

Beside him, Hermione repeated her oath as witness.

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

"Kill her."

Draco stared in the green eyes of the brunette before him. Pleading green eyes.

_"Oh, God…Dr—Malfoy!" Green eyes stared up at him, begging him for release. "I'm going to—nngh! God!" Panting. "Draco!"_

_And then the calm after…_

Only a month ago.

"Avada Kedavra!"

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

Dumbledore smiled softly. "I hereby declare you, Harry James Potter, a fully-fledged member of the Order of the Phoenix."

"Thank you, Professor," Harry replied softly, before placing an arm around Hermione's shoulders and leading her gently out of the room.

"Thanks to you, too, Hermione. You know you didn't have to do that."

She smiled sadly at him. "Oh, but I did. R-R-he couldn't be there for you, because of me, so I—"

"Don't."

Confused brown eyes looked up at him.

"Hermione, sweet, it wasn't your fault. You couldn't have done anything."

"If I had just—"

He over-rode her. "You couldn't have done anything, Hermione," he reiterated. "There's only one person you can blame."

Hermione's shoulders slumped. "I just feel so worthless, Harry. I…I miss him so much, and I feel so guilty, because I could be so much more useful, and here I am moping around."

"Not moping, 'Mione. Mourning."

She threw her arms around him and started sobbing. "H-he did-didn't even g-g-get a funer-r-ral!" she choked out.

Harry rubbed his best friends back in what he hoped was a consoling manner. "We carry the funeral in our heart, 'Mione. I'm sure he understands."

Hermione pulled her face out of her robes, wiping her eyes dry on the sleeve of her own. "Promise me something, Harry," she asked, her eyes steely.

"Anything, 'Mione."

"If I don't…if I don't get him…kill Malfoy."

His eyes widened. "M-Malfoy? As in—"

"As in Draco Malfoy."

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

"Well done. Before I Mark you, Draco, you will be happy to know that I am very pleased with your service already."

"You are most kind, my Lord," Draco murmured, bowing his head.

"Look into my eyes, Draco."

The blonde looked up into those haunting, demonic red eyes and barely suppressed a shiver.

"Give me your arm."

Draco acquiesced.

"You will not make a noise. If you do, I will kill you. Do you understand…Draco?"

"I do, my Lord."

"Good."

Then it began.

_Pain…searing pain…can'tmovecan'tbreathecan't think but for the pain…I must not make a sound, I must not make a sound--_

Draco bit through his lip in his attempt not to scream. The need was almost over powering, the salty, iron tang of his own blood trickling down his throat as the pain receded.

It was over.

Draco knelt once more and kissed the hem of the Dark Lord's robe, again.

"Thank you, my Lord."

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

The Last Stand, although it wasn't called that until after everything was all said and done.

Harry surveyed the graveyard, taking in the bodies littered around it, thrown aside, Death Eater's and Order members alike.

"They were all good, once," Hermione whispered as they passed a dying Death Eater. "They had hopes, and dreams…now look at them."

"We make our own choices, Hermione," Harry replied harshly, not taking his eyes off the figure of Voldemort's right-hand man. "They chose greed and destruction."

"Still…"

The walked on in silence, the only sound the moans of the wounded.

"That one is unforgivable." Hermione hissed as they approached. "Give me Malfoy."

Harry bit his tongue on the innumerable protests that bubbled up his throat…_He does not torture, he only plans and kills…_

_He is not evil._

"He's yours," Harry replied quietly.

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

Draco watched, heart in his mouth, Ha—Potter and his bitch slowly came nearer, making their way through the bodies strewn throughout the graveyard.

He could have done so much different, but his fate had been decided the moment Ronald Weasley had tried to kill him. Draco had retaliated—and hence started down the slippery slope to Hell.

There was no hope for him now. Granger was out for his blood, not that it mattered. The hatred in Harry's eyes was enough to kill him, a hot knife slicing through his already bruised and battered heart.

Voldemort wouldn't have protected him, even if he had been alive.

The Final Battle had taken place the week before. A week ago, Draco had been one of the most powerful men in the world, Voldemort's Heir and he couldn't have been more hollow. Now he was about to die and he'd never felt more alive. Oh, the irony. He would have laughed, if could remember how to.

The two Order members were now close enough to hear him.

"He's dead!" Draco shouted at them. "You already killed him!"

He paused, then in a quieter voice said. "There's only me left."

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

Hermione snarled savagely and levelled her wand at Draco. Harry laid a placating hand on her shoulder.

"He's not going anywhere, 'Mione. I want…I need to speak to him."

Draco's tired grey eyes registered dull surprise at his words. "Potter."

"Malfoy."

"What is this?"

Harry shook his head at the remembered words, spoken less then a year ago. His hair fell into his eyes. "Why didn't you answer me?"

"Why didn't you ask again?" The blonde countered.

Harry smiled sadly. "We make our own choices. You decided power was more important then love."

"Who said anything about love?"

"You did. I could see it in your eyes."

"Harry—"

"It's okay Hermione. He knows he's about to die," Harry said softly. Draco nodded, once, and the raven-haired man turned his attention back to the blonde. "You felt it."

"I never—"

"Your _eyes_ said it, Draco. I never even realised it until now. I thought you thought it was just fucking. I thought that for you it was just a less destructive way of releasing your hatred for me…Hell, for a while there I even hoped you would come to our side. And whenever I looked into your eyes, then, all I saw was loathing. Self-loathing, hatred for what you were, what you had to be…except I only understand that now, when all is said and done and it's too late to go back. It's seems so far away, doesn't it? But less then a year has passed since that night. And before then, the loathing in your eyes, I'd always assumed it was for me. Mine. The only thing I could have of you.

"But it wasn't hate at all, was it Draco? At least, not all of it." Harry felt once again that sad, lonely smile grace his lips. "Love and hate are two sides of the same blade, isn't that the saying? A blade, with a very keen edge."

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

Draco stared, wildly, into Harry's death-green eyes. "Why are you saying this? Now, as you said, when it is too late to turn back. Now that Granger is poised to end my life with two simple words and more hate then I ever felt for her. Why not—not a year ago, dammit? Why didn't you drag me back from the edge of the Abyss?" He began to chuckle, a giggle that sounded insane even to his own ears. _Not the laugh I was going for_. "You of all people, you could have done it. You're the Chosen One. You could have made him understand. You could have made Lucius proud of the son he had, not the one he created. _Why_?"

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

Hermione, had she any room left in her heart for the wretched man before her other then loathing, could almost have been moved to pity by the sound of that anguished wail. _We are what we are born, what we are made, and who we wish to be…if two of those three are against a man, could any one blame him for turning into what Malfoy did?_

She hardened her heart. If not for this man, countless would still be alive. R-R—_he _would still be alive, and Hermione would not be left an emotional husk, feeding on the need for vengeance and too afraid to say the name of her beloved because she would scared his spirit would see her, and turn his back on her for what she had become.

So she hardened her heart.

"We make our own choices, Malfoy." She levelled her wand at him again and snarled upon seeing her hand was still shaking with raw emotion. "You cannot rely on any one person saving you."

"Sometimes you have to save yourself, Hermione," Harry murmured, completing her sentence. She got the feeling that he had said it in a different way, somehow. For a different person.

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

Draco was shaking with mirth. It was all so _obvious_ now.

"The beauty of hindsight, eh Draco?" he muttered to himself. He raised his voice. "Two sides of the same blade, Harry? Yes. But Death is brought by the edge. Or the point." He chuckled again. "I ride His wings, Harry. Granger will have my life, and I hope that in some way that will appease her. Set her soul and mine to rest."

He felt the waves of surprise rolling off of Hermione, but he had eyes only for Harry. _Myloathingmylove._

"You are a weary soul, Harry. It's over now. You can rest." He giggled once more. "Although I wonder how you intend to achieve that rest. You're a hero now, a real one. You are what I never could be. I am a shell of a man, driven insane by a father's need for honour." He spat. "Lucius is dead now, and I will impugn his name in any way I wish. But how will you rest, Harry?"

And that damnably sad smile spread across those lips.

_I've kissed them many times._

"You know." Harry whispered.

_You returned every touch with equal passion._

"You can see it, or feel it," Harry continued. "You always had that gift. Or curse. To know exactly what a person could handle, and how to use that to your advantage."

_Passion. Born from Hate or Lust, I wonder. And blooming into something else._

The other man shook his head. "You see it, feel it now. I can't take it anymore."

_Something wonderful._

"Harry, what are you saying?"

Hermione was ignored. Both men were two far gone, each lost in the others eyes.

_How many people have I killed with those eyes? Voldemort had such a loathing for green eyes._

Harry bowed, a pureblood bow of acceptance and acknowledgement of equality, something that could not have been read in any book. "I ask, Draco, that you be the one to lead me to the Abyss."

_My loathing._

"And I ask that you fall with me."

_My love._

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

Harry watched as Draco straightened and power, energy suffused his limbs.

"Is it still a blade?" he asked softly. Hermione wouldn't understand. Hell, Harry hardly understood the words of the ritual he was speaking. It was something Tonks had spoken about. She was still alive, out on the field somewhere.

_It's a two-faced question, _she had said._ It asks either is it all hate, or is it all love. Or has nothing changed, is it a mixture of both? The way the other wizard answers will tell you the answer more truly then with the words he—or she—answers with._

Draco bowed, the very same bow Harry himself had executed only moments before.

"Harry," Hermione said, worried, " He's still got his wand. I don't think—"

Draco smiled. A true smile. Something Harry had never once seen. Something that look so at home on his face.

The blonde levelled his wand at the raven-haired man. "It is not."

Two silver eyes guided him over the edge as his world exploded in a flash of brilliant green.

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

Draco blinked away tears, then turned to face Hermione, a healed man in all senses. Hermione found the calm look that spread over his features a mockery as Harry's lifeless form toppled, slowly, to land near the Death Eater. Face up.

"How could you?" she shrieked. "How _could_ you? He loved you!"

"My loathing." Draco murmured. "My love. He understands, Granger. Now, if you would do me the courtesy of pronouncing two simple words, I can follow him. And I can rest."

_How strange it is, that the one I hate shatters the barriers around my heart_. Hermione blinked at the revelation. Had circumstances been different… _We are what we are born, what we are made, and who we wish to be. He never had a chance with the first two. But now…_

_I can give him the third._

"Who you wish to be," she said softly, levelling her wand at him as forgiveness suffused her soul. A feather-light touch caressed her check. _Ron_…

The smile upon Draco's face widened, became a grin as he began to laugh. Not the mocking laughter she had heard so many times at school, nor then insane chuckles of a dead man.

"You understand," he whispered reverently.

"We make our own choices," she replied. "Even now, it is not too late that you have made the right one."

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

He dived over the edge, racing to catch up to the eyes that guided him as his world exploded in a flash of brilliant green. The same glorious green of the eyes.

_Harry._

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

Hermione leaned against Blaise, smiling softly as she stared down at the two graves, side by side. That feather-light touch caressed her cheek as it often had since that night where she had forgiven Draco, over three years ago. Apparently Ron had wanted his old Hermione back before he made his presence known.

As often happened another breeze joined, and another, kicking up leaves that swirled around Hermione and Blaise.

"I wish Ron had a grave," she murmured.

"The grave is in your heart, Hermione. A hole, filled with dirt because there is nothing else to fill it. Am I not right?" Blaise' violet gaze was intent. This was the man who had risked the wrath of Voldemort to turn spy for her, although she had not known that information until after the Last Stand.

She nodded, hesitantly, sure of what was coming next and not knowing how to handle it. _I want to, so badly…but there's Ron…_

"I would like fill the hole with something other then dirt, Hermione. I offer you my own heart. I hope I have not made my intentions sound crass in the delivery, and I understand if you can't—"

She held up a hand. "Wait."

As the other two breezes swirled around Hermione and Blaise, the first one again caressed her cheek before Ron's voice, full of laughter, filled her mind.

_Love him._

Then they were gone.

All of them.

And for the first time since Ron's death, she welcomed it. She loved him. She loved Harry. Draco…was being allowed to exist as he had not in life, and that made her happy.

But she was still in the world of the living.

Four years of mourning was enough.

She turned back to Blaise and stood on her toes so she could reach his lips. Softly, ever so softly, he leaned forward and kissed her. And he was the one to pull away first, uncertainty shining forth beneath a violet veil.

Hermione smiled.

"I can."

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

Long after Hermione and Blaise left, two of the winds returned, playing around the graves. The only oddity about one pair was that they shared a headstone. The graves Hermione and Blaise had visited.

**Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy.**

**1980-1999**

**Together in Death as they never could be in Life.**

**My Loathing.**

**My Love**

_.:My Loathing, My Love:._

_Um…well, that's the end. I...uh, it kind of got away from me and took on a mind of it's own, but I like it. I hope you do. If you don't that's fine as well. But I'd like to know._

_Thanks for reading._


	2. Please Read!

Okay, by show of hands (or review) who wants me to do a full version of this oneshot? Would be by the name of 'Two sides of the same blade' or just 'The same blade'. If you think it's a good idea, just drop me a review or PM.

_.:F:._


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